2007-11-23 New Music [recital program]

              School of Music
U N C G
Tuesday, October 23
Preview Concert
12:30 pm
West Market United Methodist Church
“Tuesday Music” Series
free
Amy Dissanayake presents a selection of concert rags and tangos for piano
5:00 pm - Anders Åstrand, Workshop with Jazz Combo
Room 140, free
Concert I
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
7:30 pm
$10/6/4/3
Abraham’s Eyes Were Darkened (2004) Benjamin Broening (b. 1967)
UNCG Chamber Singers; Welborn Young, director
Sonia Archer-Capuzzo, clarinet
Kate Forman, bass clarinet
Clarke Carriker, harp
Joshua Bateson and Stephanie Sanders, percusison
Sun Dance (2005) Matthew Quayle (b. 1976)
Susan Fancher and Steve Stusek, alto saxophone
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Ragtime Set
Graceful Ghost Rag (1970) William Bolcom (b. 1938)
In Stride (2003) John Musto (b. 1954)
Rozology (2000) John Halle
Carnaval Noir Derek Bermel (b. 1967)
Amy Dissanayake, piano
Intermission
Vamoalzamendi 2 Alejandro Rutty (b. 1967)
Lorena Guillén, soprano
Ballad I Norr Anders Åstrand (b. 1962)
Anders Åstrand, vibraphone
Mr. Groove Anders Åstrand
Anders Åstrand, marimba
Wednesday, October 24
10:00 - Rodney Waschka, Music and Theatricks
Room 224, free
Music and Theatricks
Theatrics, n. 1. Of, relating to, or suitable for dramatic performance or the theater. 2. Marked
by exaggerated self-display and unnatural behavior; affectedly dramatic.
(American Heritage Dictionary)
This talk will attempt to explain something about the composer's use of "tricks" of different
types to handle the theatrical aspects of his music. Examples will be drawn from a variety of
works including solo pieces, a trio (to be performed on the Wednesday night concert) a
woodwind quintet, and the composer's trilogy of operas. Questions and comments welcomed.
12:00 - Anders Åstrand Rehearsal with Jazz Band
Room 111, free
1:00 - Ivica Ico Bukvic,
Beyond Computer Music - Reshaping Contemporary Arts through Technology
Computer Lab - Room 116, free
Beyond Computer Music—Reshaping Contemporary Arts through Technology
The fate of Computer Music and technology are hopelessly intertwined. Although Computer
Music genre is a relative newcomer to the Arts scene, its brief history, akin to that of computer-age
technology, paints an image of a resilient and malleable form of art. In what appears to be
one of many breakthroughs to come, this ongoing symbiosis has in recent years led towards a
total breakdown of traditional boundaries that have for centuries served as bastions of art
disciplines and their unique identities. This new intermedia kind of Art begs for a homo
universalis, a person who is a polymath, a generalist, or a “jack of all trades.” Terms that used
to bear negative connotations (especially for those seeking tenure), now paint a picture of a
modern artist who seeks proficiency in multiple areas including music, visual arts, computer
science and technology, theatre, and many more. We now face an age of multidisciplinarity in
which ironically academia, arguably the very birthplace of the genre, continues to struggle with
restructuring to address challenges and opportunities Interactive Multimedia Art has to offer.
2:00-4:00 - Anders Åstrand, Percussion Workshop
Room 140, free
Student Composers Concert
Wednesday, October 24
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
4:00 pm
free
Three Short Movements for Violin and Piano Kathleen Bader
I. Walking
II. Waiting
III. Winding
Wayne Reich, violin
Ināra Zandmane, piano
Regulated Action (2006) Braxton Sherouse
I. springs
II. just harmonics
III. Coarse Tuning
IV. the woodpecker octave
V. monochromatic
Amy Dissanayake, piano
Fantasia per oboe e Electro (2007) Daniel Pappas
Thomas Pappas, oboe with digital media
Piano Suite Matthew Phelps
I.
II.
III.
Samee Griffith, piano
Eternal Enamor Andrew Hannon
I. Playful
II. Fragile and Delicate
III. Brash and Aggressive
Ian Jeffress, soprano saxophone
Aimee Fincher, piano
Hagar’s Prayer Amy Scurria
Sarah Love Taylor, mezzo-soprano
Wayne Bennett, trumpet
Amy Scurria, piano
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (2007) Alex Kotch
Gina Pezzoli, violoncello
Alex Kotch, bass clarinet
Samee Griffith, piano
Piano Sonata Paul Leary
I. Homage to Linkin Park
Paul Leary, piano with digital media
Concert II
Wednesday, October 24
UNCG School of Music Recital Hall
7:30 pm
$10/6/4/3
Notturno Samantha DiRosa, video
Ryan Hare (b. 1970), music
Arioso/Doubles (2002) Benjamin Broening (b. 1967)
Anthony Taylor, clarinet
Good Luck and Bad Luck Rodney Waschka
UNCG Contemporary Players
Andrés Mila-Prats, coach
Laura Pollard, flute
Michael Dwinell, oboe
Carlos Fuentes, piano
Tango Set
Septangle (1984) Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938)
Piglia (2001) Pablo Ortiz (b. 1956)
Tangrango, (Being a Brief Identity Crisis for Piano Solo) (1998) Hayes Biggs (b. 1957)
Tandy’s Tango (1992) Lou Harrison (1917-2003)
Tango? (1983) Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997)
Amy Dissanayake, piano
Intermission
Out of Doors Suite Part 2 (2003) Ivica Ico Bukvic, video and music (b. 1976)
Mysterious Morning III Fuminori Tanada (b. 1961)
Steve Stusek, soprano saxophone
Piano Etudes David Rakowski (b. 1959)
40 Strident (2002, stride piano etude)
22 Schnozzage (1999, etude for melody in the nose)
41 Bop It (2002, bop etude)
14 Martler (1997, crossing hands etude)
Amy Dissanayake, piano
Free Improvisation/Jam Anders Åstrand, Amy Dissanayake and friends
Thursday, October 25
UNCG School of Music
10:00-12:00 Composers Reading Session with Amy Dissanayake
Recital Hall, free
Works by UNCG student composers Minjeong Kim, Daniel Travis Clem, Michael Cummings,
Matt Kalb, and Matt Johnson
1:00-2:30 Piano Masterclass with Amy Dissanayake
Organ Hall, free
3:00-3:45 Shawn Okpebholo, Circleplay: Composer as Collaborator
with Anthony Taylor, clarinet
Room 223, free
4:00-5:00 Benjamin Broening,
Speech, Sound, and Meaning in Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room
Composition History and Theory Lecture Series
Room 217, free
Speech, Sound and Meaning in Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room
Alvin Lucier’s 1969 landmark piece I am sitting in a room opens with a recording of Lucier
reading a description of the means of the work’s realization. The piece unfolds according to the
instructions offered at the piece’s opening: thirty-two iterations of the spoken text slowly
transform from intelligible, if flawed, speech, into sustained and slowly changing pitches over
the course of forty-five minutes. In this paper I use spectrograms to examine the process by
which Lucier’s speech is transformed in two realizations of the work and compare the
interactions of speech, sound, meaning and compositional process to works with voice on tape
by Reich and Berio.
Concert III
Thursday, October 25
Weatherspoon Art Museum
free
5:30 Reception
6:00 Bill Fontana
6:30 Time to go into installation/more Reception
7:00 Concert
Weatherspoon Auditorium:
In Two Worlds Morton Subotnick (b. 1933)
Susan Fancher, alto saxophone
Remarks by Judith Shatin
Penelope’s Song Judith Shatin, music
Kathy Aoki and Marco Marquez, video
Susan Fancher soprano saxophone
Break
Weatherspoon Atrium:
Energy Drink III Mark Engebretson (b. 1964)
Scott Rawls, viola
Circleplay Shawn Okpebholo (b. 1981)
Anthony Taylor, clarinet
L’accordeoniste Alejandro Rutty (b. 1967)
EastWind Ensemble
Mary Ashley Barret, oboe
Kelly Burke, clarinet and bass clarinet
Steve Stusek, saxophone
Michael Burns, bassoon
COMPOSERS/VIDEO ARTISTS AND PROGRAM NOTES
Kathy Aoki received her MFA in printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis in 1994.
Since then she has worked as a professional artist and teacher, exhibiting her prints, paintings,
and sculptures at such venues as San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Quito
Ecuador, and Kobe, Japan. Permanent collections include SFMOMA, the Harvard University Art
Museums, and the City of Seattle. This is her second animation project with composer Judith
Shatin, whom she met during an artist residency at the MacDowell Colony. Aoki is currently an
assistant professor of studio art at Santa Clara University, where she teaches computer arts.
(see notes for Penelope’s Song under Judith Shatin)
As a mallet specialist, Anders Åstrand regularly performs recitals and gives clinics
throughout the US and Europe, both as a soloist and together with his percussion ensemble
Global Percussion Network. Anders Åstrand has several times performed at PASIC (Percussive
Arts Society International Convention).
In his compositions, Åstrand focuses on improvisation as an essential feature for soloists as
well as the ensemble. In addition to mallet music, Åstrand has been commissioned to compose
for brass quintets, saxophone quartet, choirs, and big band. A more spectacular side features
compositions for ice instruments to be performed by percussion ensemble (one of the concerts
also featured fighter aircraft as instruments), tractors, and an entire building being inaugurated.
Åstrand has also composed music for multimedia performances including dance, video
projections, ice instruments, and fire sculptures.
Anders Åstrand is a member of several groups:
Global Percussion Network with Rolf Landberg, Daniel Saur, Anders Åstrand (mallet instruments
and percussion), and Tomas Bohlin (sound creator). GPN is a groove-oriented percussion
keyboard ensemble, performing unlimited music.
Together with organist Mattias Wager in a duo, using free improvisation as the means to create
dynamic, musical experiments.
Cashew with Michael Gould (drums), Miles Osland (saxophone), Brad Townsend (bass),
and Anders Åstrand (vibraphone and marimba) features original, powerful, expressive music.
Sven Åberg (lute, theorbo) and Anders Åstrand (vibraphone, marimba, percussion) meet
occasionally in various projects, e.g. a portrait of the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,
and as the musical configuration of mathematics in a seminar on the Legacy of Mathematics.
Ballad i Norr written in January I think it was 1990 in the night after a long day of teaching
and it was really crazy cold. So, standing in the percussion room and improvising this tune came
up.
Mr Groove was inspired from a new series of mallets I just got sent to me. This piece came
up; it was a nice groove to get these mallets!
Kathleen Bader primarily grew up in the crowded spaces of the Northeast (Massachusetts
and Pennsylvania) where she developed a taste for the flat expanse and solitude of deserts. She
finally got to spend a significant amount of time in one when she received the Martin Dale
fellowship from Princeton University, a fellowship that allowed her to write music in Arizona,
hermit-style.
Her vision is still adjusting from the horizontal orientation of deserts to the vertical direction
of forests – she is now discovering the beauty to these tall, thick trees while studying here in
North Carolina. Now a second year student in composition at Duke University, she is studying
with Steve Jaffe, Scott Lindroth and Anthony Kelley. In 2004 she received her BA at Princeton
University after working with Steve Mackey and Paul Lansky.
I wrote the material for Three Short Movements for Violin and Piano at around the same
time that I was taking a course in introductory drawing. In my drawing class, we often warmed up
by doing quick figural sketches – we were given thirty seconds to convey a specific pose or
movement as effectively as possible. In my training as a musician, there hasn’t been a
complement to this type of exercise (in my experience, composition is often a painstakingly slow
and meticulous process). However, the temporal aspect of these drawing exercises inspired me
in a roundabout way, especially when thinking about what movement means in the visual arts
versus what it means in music. In the visual arts, the movement of the artist during the process is
often tangible. When looking at these figural sketches, you can sense the brevity of the process
and the speed at which the artist moved - this brevity gives each sketch a certain concentrated
energy, even if the pose or motion depicted is rather sedate. Unfortunately, I have not yet been
able to compose any music of value in thirty seconds, so I wanted to achieve this energy of
brevity in another way. As such, I made sure to keep each movement rather short so that the
sense of mood and/or motion behind each movement would be experienced in a similarly
concentrated way.
Described as "an eclectic with wide open ears ," Derek Bermel has been widely hailed by
colleagues, critics, and audiences across the globe for his creativity and theatricality as a
composer of chamber, symphonic, dance, theater, and pop works, and his virtuosity and
charisma as a clarinetist, conductor, and jazz and rock musician. He studied ethnomusicology
and orchestration in Jerusalem, and later traveled to Bulgaria to study the Thracian folk style,
Dublin to study uillean pipes, and Ghana to study the Lobi xylophone. From the complex
Bulgarian melodies in Tied Shifts, to Irish bagpipes coupled by Led Zepplin-inspired riffs in
Voices, Bermel infuses his music with the rhythms and inflections of myriad folk traditions while
maintaining a sophisticated and distinctive style of orchestration, harmony, and
counterpoint.Bermel's many awards include the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright
Fellowships, awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Faber Music. His music
is published by Peermusic Classical (US) and Faber Music (UK).
Hayes Biggs was born in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1957 and raised in Helena, Arkansas. He
holds a doctor of musical arts degree in composition from Columbia University, a master of music
degree from Southern Methodist University, and a bachelor of music degree in piano performance
from Rhodes College. His teachers have included Mario Davidovsky, Jack Beeson, Fred Lerdahl,
Donald Erb, and Don Freund. Biggs has been a fellow in composition at the Composers
Conference and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley, at the Tanglewood Music Center, at Yaddo,
and at the MacDowell Colony. In 1995 he was the recipient of a Fromm Foundation Commission
to compose a work for Parnassus, When you are reminded by the instruments, which was
premiered by that ensemble in March 1997. He was named a recipient of a John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for the academic year 1998–99. Recently he was honored by
an entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, and he was named as
one of five composers to receive a 2001 Aaron Copland Award. This award carries with it the
opportunity for a residency at the Aaron Copland House in upstate New York for several weeks
next year, where he will be free to devote himself entirely to composition. From 1991-2001 he
was associate editor at C. F. Peters Corporation, and since 1992 he has been on the faculty of
Manhattan School of Music. Most recently he has been awarded a commission by the American
Composers Forum and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust to compose a group of haiku
settings for the vocal quartet Kiitos.
Professor William Bolcom, recipient of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Music, has received
commissions from the Vienna Philharmonic (Salzburg Mozarteum), Philadelphia Orchestra, New
York Philharmonic, Berlin Domaine Musical, Saarlandischer Rundfunk, American Composers
Orchestra, Saint Louis, National, Pacific and Boston Symphonies, The MET Orchestra, Lyric
Opera of Chicago, Mendelssohn Quartet, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg,
mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, and many others. As piano soloist, accompanist (primarily with his
wife, mezzo-soprano and School of Music, Theatre & Dance faculty member, Joan Morris), and
composer, Professor Bolcom is represented on recordings for Nonesuch, Deutsche
Grammophon, RCA, CBS, MHS, Arabesque, Jazzology, Vox, Advance, CRI, Phillips, Laurel, First
Edition, Newport Classics, Omega, Vanguard, Argo, Koch Classics, Crystal, New World, Centaur,
Folkways, Naxos, and many others. He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1973, was the
1977 recipient of the Henry Russel Award and the 1997 Henry Russell Lectureship, and was
appointed Ross Lee Finney Distinguished Professor of Composition in 1994.
Benjamin Broening is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His numerous
commissions include works for the Charlotte Symphony, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia,
the Band and Orchestral Division of Yamaha Corporation of America, the Arts Now Series at
North Carolina State University, the James River Singers among many others. A recipient of the
Presser Music Award, Broening has also received recognition and awards from the American
Composers Forum, Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Fulbright Foundation. His music has
been recorded on the Centaur, everglade, Equilibrium, MIT Press and SEAMUS labels. Broening
is founder and artistic director of Third Practice, an annual festival of electroacoustic music at the
University of Richmond, where he is Associate Professor of Music. He holds degrees from the
University of Michigan, Cambridge University, Yale University, and Wesleyan University.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard uses the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore the
idea of faith. Genesis provides the broad outlines of the narrative but doesn’t say much about
what each of those involved were thinking or feeling. Kierkegaard fills that void by imagining the
reactions of Abraham and Isaac four different ways. Abraham’s Eyes Were Darkened is a
setting of the second of those re-imaginings. In this version of the story, Kierkegaard imagines the
effect on Abraham: “From that time on Abraham became old, he could not forget that God had
required this of him. Isaac throve as before, but Abraham's eyes were darkened, and he knew joy
no more.” Abraham’s Eyes Were Darkened was commissioned by the James River Singers,
Jeffrey Riehl, director.
Arioso/Doubles (2002) was commissioned for Arthur Campbell by the Band and Orchestral
Division of the Yamaha Corporation of America. Its title reflects the piece's indebtedness to vocal
music and to 17th century opera in particular. The piece is not meant to evoke the harmonic or
stylistic language of early-to-mid 17th Italian opera. Rather, the title refers to changing nature of
the melodic line that moves fluidly among declamatory or recitative-like passages, short melodic
phrases and longer, more strongly characterized lines.
Arioso/Doubles is the third work in a series of pieces for solo instrument and computer.
Doubles is a term used in 17th and early 18th century French music for a technique of variation in
which more or less elaborate ornamentation is added to the original melody, while the supporting
harmonies remain constant. The Doubles series takes this idea as its starting point and applies
the variation technique to the timbre of the soloist as well as the pitched material. The computer
also responds to the clarinet’s music; sometimes confirming (doubling) and summarizing,
sometimes extending, altering or recontextualizing the clarinet’s melodic and harmonic material.
The art of composer and multimedia sculptor Ivica Ico Bukvic (b.1976) is defined by the
ubiquitous interactivity. Fueled by a synergistic outlook, his work is a balancing act between
scientific research of new multimedia technologies for the purpose of betterment of the overall
quality of life and a pursuit of new forms of artistic expression using newfound technologies. This
passion for art and technology coupled by a traditional music background has empowered him to
defy preexisting forms and even challenge the very foundations, yet do so without sacrificing their
lasting appeal. His opus encompasses aural and visual, acoustic and electronic, performances
and installations.
In part supported by grants, commissions, and awards (ASCAP, SEAMUS, SAI, Upbeat, VT
CLAHS), his creations have received international exposure through music festivals (ICMC,
SEAMUS, Spark, FEMF, CMS, EMM, IEMF, LAC, MusicX, OCEAn, gmem), radio stations,
concerts, and Internet. His research (including grants from UC UGS, VT CEUT, VT CLAHS,
ISCE, VT Foundation, Croatian Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports) has produced a
number of software contributions to the multimedia art community (RTMix, RTcmix instruments,
Soundmesh, Superkaramba, Pure-Data, Max/MSP) and has been published in journals,
magazines, and conference proceedings, such as Organised Sound, Spark, LAC, ICMC, Linux
User & Developer, and Array. Ico maintains an active career as a scholar and researcher; prior to
joining Virginia Tech, he taught at the Oberlin College, Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of
Music (CCM), and has served as a visiting lecturer at various festivals and workshops. As the
author of the first-of-a-kind "Linux & Multimedia" curriculum at CCM and Virginia Tech, and the
elected Director of the international Linuxaudio.org consortium, he has a soft spot for libre
software. Currently, he is also serving as the elected Board member and treasurer for the Society
for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS).
Having received doctorate at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati (2005), Dr.
Bukvic is currently working at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor in music composition &
technology, the founder and director of the new Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio
(DISIS), the music technology and interactivity faculty in the new Collaborative for Creative
Technologies in the Arts and Design (CCTAD) interdisciplinary program, and as a member of the
Center for Human-Computer Interaction (CHCI).
An apparently random title with the [not so] subliminal references to Bela Bartok’s legacy, in
a desperate author’s attempt to [quite blatantly] cash in on such an association, as well as in part
due to utter sleep deprivation which had eventually resulted in a flu with benefits, Out of Doors
Suite Part 2 therefore stands as an unauthorized [and arguably abysmally botched] sequel [as
usually all commercial sequels and prequels are] to its forerunner. Dubiously, through
interference of the [sparse] gray matter of its deranged parent [no, not Bartok, the other guy] the
idea inexplicably grew into a buoyant play on words and stereotypes of our times…To put it
bluntly, if you ever wondered what Monty Python would do if they did electroacoustic music…
The work of Samantha DiRosa explores the precariousness of memory and history and our
societal fixation with documenting and classifying experience. DiRosa draws inspiration from
institutional, cultural, and personal archives and she is concerned with issues of permanence,
evidence, and truth within the context of these archives. Her hybrid media installations unite
scientific inquiry with esoteric questions and manifest via the vehicles of book arts, video, sound,
sculpture, and photography. DiRosa’s work has been exhibited widely, and includes solo and
group exhibitions at Portland Art Center (Portland, OR), Keki Gallery (Budapest Hungary), 1078
Gallery (Chico, CA), TIXE Artspace (New York, NY), Manifest Creative Research Gallery
(Cincinnati, OH), and Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art (Fort Collins, CO). DiRosa holds
MFA's in both Photography and Digital Arts from the University of Oregon and a BFA from Long
Island University in New York. She is currently on the faculty of Elon University.
Notturno (2007) was conceived as a collaborative project between bassoonist and
composer Ryan Hare and hybrid-media artist Samantha DiRosa. The music is two excerpted
movements from Hare's Sinfonia: Six Pieces in Memoriam John Cage (2000). These movements
are entitled Nachtmusik I and II (in an oblique homage to Gustav Mahler's Seventh Symphony),
and are night music in the Bartokian sense of the word. Hare had for some time thought of
extracting these two movements into a separate composition, and this project proved to be the
ideal opportunity. Concerning the music used in the two movements and here in Notturno, Hare
wrote, "The sound sources include a recalcitrant steam radiator from an old apartment I once
lived in, which used to awaken me daily in the brutally early hours of the morning. After cursing
the primitive technology, I sometimes tried to adopt a more constructive attitude and hear the
radiator noises as a composition." DiRosa’s accompanying video consists of footage captured
from the Costa Rican rain forest and the Museum of Natural History in New York, purposely
recorded at a slow frame rate with a low resolution digital still camera. Akin to her earlier work,
issues surrounding the technological mediation of nature and experience manifest in this collage
of pixelated moving images.
Mark Engebretson (b. 1964) is Assistant Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at
the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His compositions have been presented at
festivals such as ICMC (International Computer Music Conference), Bowling Green Festival of
New Music and Art, Third Practice Festival, Wien Modern (Vienna), Gaida Festival (Vilnius,
Lithuania), Sonoimagenes (Buenos Aires) Hörgänge Festival (Vienna), Ny Musikk (Bergen,
Norway), Indiana State University New Music Festival (Terre Haute, Indiana), the Florida
Electroacoustic Music Festival, ISCM Festivals (Tirana, Albania and Baku, Azerbaijan), the
UNCG New Music Festival and World Saxophone Congresses (Pesaro, Italy, Montreal, Canada,
Minneapolis, Minnesota and Ljubljana, Slovenia).
Recent performances include premieres by UNCG’s EastWind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall,
the SUNY Fredonia Wind Ensemble at a College Band Director’s National Organization (CBDNA)
regional conference, the Wroclaw (Poland) Philharmonic Orchestra, a presentation by the
Jacksonville Symphony and a three-night, sold out engagement featuring Winter Ashes, with
dance and video by John Gamble. Since its completion in January 2006, SaxMax for saxophone
and interactive electronics has received eleven performances worldwide.
She Sings, She Screams for alto saxophone and digital media has been performed
countless times worldwide, and has been released on three commercial compact disc recordings,
two of which are on the Innova label. Other works on CD include Nesseln (Arizona University
Recordings American’s Millennium Tribute to Adolphe Sax, Volume VIII, AUR CD 3121); Duo
Concertante (recorded twice, both due for release soon); and Events (to be included on FEMF
vol. 2 proceedings disc). A composer-feature disc of chamber music was released in 2007
(Innova 645).
Dr. Engebretson taught composition at the University of Florida, music theory at the SUNY
Fredonia and 20th-century music history at the Eastman School of Music. He studied at the
University of Minnesota (graduating Summa cum Laude), the Conservatoire de Bordeaux (as a
Fulbright Scholar), and Northwestern University, where he received the Doctor of Music degree.
At Northwestern he studied composition with M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta
Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick
Hemke. His teachers in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix.
With the completion of Energy Drink III, I can finally speak of the Energy Drink pieces as a
series, which it has been my intention to create for a number of years. These pieces are intense,
energetic and demanding works, demanding a virtuoso performance from both the player and
composer.
Energy Drink III was commissioned by my colleague and friend, violist Scott Rawls. This
piece is, in essence, a blues, with a chord structure derived from this form stretched out one time
over the entirety of the short work, thus forming the harmonic plan for the whole. I wanted to work
with (varied) repeatability in this piece, so material you hear once, you may hear again. There are
a myriad of localized harmonic schemes and motivic variations overlaid onto the basic harmonic
scheme, considerable amount of work with sound, timbre, rhythm and meter. My conception of
harmony may seem somewhat distant from the inspiration, but ultimately, it is all derived from the
blues.
Bill Fontana has worked for the past 30 years creating installations that use sound as a
sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural
settings. These have been installed in public spaces and museums around the world including
San Francisco, New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Venice, Sydney and Tokyo.
His sound sculptures use the human and/or natural environment as a living source of
musical information. He is assuming that at any given moment there will be something meaningful
to hear and that music, in the sense of coherent sound patterns, is a process that is going on
constantly. His methodology has been to create networks of simultaneous listening points that
relay real time acoustic data to a common listening zone (sculpture site). Since 1976 he has
called these works sound sculptures.
He has produced a large number of works that explore the idea of creating live listening
networks. These all use a hybrid mix of transmission technologies that connect multiple sound
retrieval points to a central reception point. What is significant in this process are the conceptual
links determining the relationships between the selected listening points and the site-specific
qualities of the reception point (sculpture site). Some conceptual strategies have been acoustic
memory, the total transformation of the visible (retinal) by the invisible (sound), hearing as far as
one can see, the relationship of the speed of sound to the speed of light, and the deconstruction
of our perception of time.
From the late 90”s until the present his projects have explored hybrid listening technologies
of acoustic microphones, underwater sensors (hydrophones) and structural/material sensors
(accelerometers). He has also realized and is developing projects that access live seismic
networks to explore the sound energy of ocean waves, traveling long distances underground.
Spiraling Sound Axis is a sound sculpture by artist Bill Fontana recently installed in the
Weatherspoon's sculpture courtyard, and receiving it’s official inauguration at the 2007 UNCG
New Music Festival. Spiraling Sound Axis consists of custom-made recordings of familiar North
Carolina sounds that Fontana collected throughout the state between 1991 and 1993. The artist
traveled around the state recording sound samples that represent the state's history, industry,
people, culture, and environment. A thunderstorm in Wilmington, a tobacco auction in Wilson,
Cherokee storytellers, a fiddler's convention in Mount Airy, morning preparations at Old Salem,
waves crashing at the coast, birds, frogs, and geese are just a few of the hundreds of sounds
Fontana recorded and wove into his piece. The work itself is made up of three CD players, 4
amplifiers and 8 speakers. The taped sounds will be heard randomly throughout the
Weatherspoon courtyard.
John Halle is an assistant professor of music at Yale University. He has studied with Fred
Lerdahl at Columbia, Andrew Imbrie at UC Berkeley, and at the University of Michigan with
William Bolcom and William Albright. He has also studied privately with John Harbison in Italy and
at Tanglewood. Halle's music includes Operation Chaos commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-
Stars, Structural Adjustment for the Common Sense Composers' Collective, recorded on the
group's first CD on the CRI label and Softshoe for brass quintet, recorded on the Meridian Arts
Ensemble's Channel Classics CD Smart Went Crazy. His recent work includes Gaze premiered at
the Chamber Music of Lincoln Center Double exposure series and Mortgaging the Earth on a text
by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers premiered by the New York new music
ensemble Sequitur. For many years a jazz pianist in San Francisco and New York, he has
performed with Sonny Stitt, Tom Harrell, Mark Levine and Woody Shaw. He has also performed
widely as a new music pianist having premiered works by American composers in Russia,
Estonia, Germany, at the Bang on the Can Festival in New York, on recordings by Julia Wolfe
and Evan Ziporyn and at composer's concerts at Columbia and Princeton. An a occasional writer
on music, Halle has published collaborative work with Fred Lerdahl on the relationship of musical
and linguistic generative grammars. He is currently working with Edward Harsh on "Themes and
Provocations" a selection of interviews with and essays about younger composers.
Andrew Hannon is currently working as a graduate assistant at The University of South
Carolina where he is working on his DMA in Composition. Andrew has also received his MM in
Composition/Theory and a BM in Music Education from Southern Illinois University.
As a Composer, Andrew has studied with John Fitz Rogers, Reginald Bain, Frank Stemper,
and Kathleen Ginther, as well as masterclasses with Paul Lanksy, Bernard Rands, and Jacob ter
Veldhauis. His compositions use a mixture of complex rhythms, nearly atonal harmonies, and
generous use of electronics to create a texture that is both familiar and unexpected. In 2005
Andrew won the Carl Deis Award for "The Places We Hide".
Eternal Enamor is divided into three movements that trace the personal emotions related to
the process of desire and dissatisfaction. The first movement represents a playful nature in which
one is enticed and courted by a sense of fulfillment. The second movement is a bittersweet
mixture of emotions beginning with satisfaction and then moving to a realization that the attraction
has now faded. The third movement begins with a sense of disillusionment filled with angst and
frustration only to culminate with a new attraction. “My stomach's always been a liar- I'll believe
its lies again.” (Aaron Weiss, I never said that I was brave)
Ryan M. Hare, originally from Reno, Nevada, teaches composition, music theory, and
studio bassoon at Washington State University, is the bassoonist for the Solstice Wind Quintet,
holds the position of principal bassoon with the Washington-Idaho Symphony, and is a member of
the Seattle-based new music ensemble Affinity. He earned the degree Doctorate of Musical Arts
in Composition from the University of Washington; his other degrees include a Master of Music in
Composition from Ithaca College and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Oregon State University.
Recently, he was honored to be selected for the Washington Composers Forum "Composer
Spotlight" series at Jack Straw Productions in Seattle, and in 2006 he was awarded a prestigious,
unrestricted fellowship from Artist Trust. Hare's compositions have been performed in many
venues throughout the United States, in Chile, and also at the Ferienkurse fuer Neue Musik in
Darmstadt, Germany. As a bassoonist, he has been active as a freelance performer since high
school, and has performed in professional orchestras in many places across the U.S.; this
includes freelancing with many of the leading orchestras in the Puget Sound region, such as the
Seattle Symphony, Northwest Sinfonietta, Tacoma Symphony, and Bellevue Philharmonic. He
has been particularly energetic as a supporter of new music, and has commissioned or premiered
a very large number of new works by a variety of composers. A compact disc featuring
contemporary pieces performed by Hare for solo bassoon and bassoon with electronics is
available on the Present Sounds Label.
(see notes for Notturno under Samantha DiRosa)
Lou Harrison has for fifty years been in the vanguard of American composers. An innovator of
musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundries, Harrison's highly
acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the
world.
Born in Portland, Oregon, on May 14, 1917, Lou Harrison grew up in the culturally diverse San
Francisco Bay Area. There he was influenced by Cantonese Opera, Gregorian chants and the
music of California's Spanish and Mexican cultures. Harrison also developed an interest in
Indonesian Gamelan music through early recordings.
As a young man, Lou Harrison (1917 - 2003) worked as a dancer and a dance
accompanist. His early compositions included a large body of percussion music, combining
Western, Asian, African and Latin American rhythmic influences with homemade 'junk'
instruments. During this period, Harrison worked closely with John Cage and began studies in
Los Angeles with Arnold Schoenberg.
A move to New York in the mid-forties brought Harrison to the Herald Tribune as music
critic. Here Harrison helped to bring wider attention to the work of Charles Ives, and is considered
largely responsible for Ives' receiving the Pulitzer Prize. The young composer and critic also
embarked on a study of early European music during this period. In the late forties, Harrison
taught at the legendary Black Mountain College. By the early fifties, he moved back to California,
where he has lived ever since.
Residence on the West Coast intensified Harrison's involvement in a synthesis of musical
cultures bordering on the Pacific, reflected in such works as Pacifica Rondo and Lo Koro Sutro for
chorus and gamelan. Over the decades, he maintained an interest in dance, theater and the craft
of instrument building and was an accomplished puppeteer who composed music for puppet
theater.
Harrison traveled extensively, adding to the global resonance his artistry, performing and
studying with the musical masters of varied cultures, and presenting his work to enthusiastic
audiences everywhere. Michael Tilson Thomas acknowledged Harrison's mastery by
commissioning him to compose Parade for M.T.T. the first piece of music Tilson Thomas
conducted as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. Performers such as Keith Jarrett,
Yo-Yo Ma, The Mark Morris Dance Group and Dennis Russell Davies also premiered Harrison's
music.
Alex Kotch, a Chapel Hill native, received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Brown
University in 2006, where he played clarinet and saxophone in the orchestra, jazz band, and
Brown New Music, an ensemble he co-founded in 2004. His compositions and sound-art have
been performed or installed in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Ohio, and
North Carolina. His mentors include Todd Winkler, Alvin Lucier, Ed Tomassi, Martin Bresnick, and
Stephen Jaffe. He is currently in his first year of Duke’s Ph.D. program in Composition.
The title (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) reflects the history of the work’s main musical material.
It originated in 2004 as a four-part choral piece, but something was missing. I reduced the work to
selected elements and reused it in its next form, a 13-part clarinet choir, in 2005. This ensemble
never did come together, and I put the material on hold for over a year. Finally, I reworked it into a
transformed, or recycled, version for saxophones and piano. At the request of Thierry Pécou, I
arranged it for clarinet, cello, and piano for Ensemble Zellig.
Paul Leary born in Southern California in 1974. His 1997 piece, A Man Adrift on a Slim
Spar , was a finalist in the BMI Young Composers Competition. In 1997 he attended the
University of Michigan and in 1999 received his Bachelor's in music Composition. There he
studied with William Albright, Erik Santos, and Michael Dougherty. His graduate work brought him
to the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), where he received his Masters in Music Composition in
May 2002. He also attended the summer program, La Scola Catorum in Paris, France under the
direction of Phillip Lasser. During his studies at CIM, Paul taught music theory for non-majors at
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). Paul Leary was one of the contributing orchestrators
for Contemporary Youth Orchestra concert Classical Nash. In the fall of 2003, the Contemporary
Youth Orchestra commissioned Paul for Concerto for Trumpet, Turntables, and Orchestra for
their December concert. Paul's piece, Horn Sonata was premiered by Richard King, principle horn
of the Cleveland Orchestra in the spring of 2003. In April 2004, Paul orchestrated, arranged and
transcribed the Contemporary Youth Orchestra's concert with Jon Anderson, lead singer of Yes.
In 2005, Paul orchestrated and arranged a concert with four-time Grammy Award winning artist
Pat Benetar. Paul's music has also appeared in the concert series at Mather Dance Center in
Cleveland, Oh, from 2002-6; contributing works for String Quintet, Electronics, Cello and Piano,
Clarinet and Piano, and solo Piano. Paul's most recent work, "I have a Past Life Memory of the
War that Blew the Fifth Planet into the Asteroid Belt" for sax quartet and electronics was chosen
as a finalist at the 2007 International Computer Music Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In
2005, Paul became a part-time lecturer at Case Western Reserve University teaches computer
music. In 2005, Paul Leary began working towards his PhD in Music Composition at Duke
University. Currently, Paul is taking a leave of absence from his studies at Duke to teach theory,
composition, and music history full time at Denison University in Granville, OH.
Piano Sonata for solo piano and electronics is a work in progress. This first movement
reflects my love of popular genres such as trip hop, hip-hop, electronic music, and metal. More
and more my "concert" works are being influences by popular genres and electro-acoustic music;
groups such as Linkin Park, PortisHead, múm, The Books, and Massive Attack play pivotal roles
in my artistic thinking. Most of the electronics in this work are drawn from an extensive library of
samples I took from my piano at home.
Marco Marquez received his MFA in Computer Art from the New York School of Visual Arts
in 1999, specializing in 3-d modeling and animation. After returning to California, Marco worked
as a lead/senior designer at multiple design agencies in Silicon Valley, designing and producing
web design, brochures, and corporate branding. Marco currently lectures at Santa Clara
University's Art department, where he teaches 3D, computer art, and graphic design courses. His
fine art interests include painting, digital and mixed media. This is his first collaborative animation
with artist Kathy Aoki and composer Judith Shatin.
(see notes for Penelope’s Song under Judith Shatin)
Award-winning composer and pianist John Musto is regarded as one of the most versatile
musicians before the public today. His richly allusive and eclectic style wedded to an exacting
compositional technique has won him critical and audience acclaim throughout the world. Mr.
Musto was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral song cycle Dove Sta Amore. He
has also garnered two Emmys and two CINE Awards for his scores written for television. In 2000
he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at Bellagio, Italy. Mr. Musto has been featured on the
Great Performers series at Lincoln Center and the Composer Portrait series at Columbia’s Miller
Theater. John Musto has been a visiting professor at Brooklyn College and is a frequent guest
lecturer at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. As a pianist, Mr. Musto has
recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Nonesuch The Milken Archive, CRI and EMI, and his compositions
have been recorded for Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, MusicMasters, Innova, Channel Classics,
Albany Records and New World Records.
The expatriate American experimentalist composer Conlon Nancarrow is increasingly
recognized as having one of the most innovative musical minds of the twentieth century. His
music, almost all written for player piano, is the most rhythmically complex ever written, couched
in intricate contrapuntal systems using up to twelve different tempos at the same time. Yet
despite its complexity, Nancarrow's music drew its early influence from the jazz pianism of Art
Tatum and Earl Hines and from the rhythms of Indian music; Nancarrow's whirlwinds of notes are
joyously physical in their energy. Composed in almost complete isolation from 1940, this music
has achieved international fame only in the last few years.
Shawn E. Okpebholo, age 26, joined the faculty of Northern Kentucky University in 2007
as Lecturer in Music Theory and Composition. His previous teaching experiences include the
University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music and Cincinnati State Technical and
Community College. In addition to his duties at NKU, Dr. Okpebholo is an active composer and
arranger. His music has been performed in over twenty-five states, Canada, and Europe by
many diverse performers and ensembles. Some, of which, include the United States Army Field
Band, Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Players, Royal Belgian
Navy Band, and Soprano Tamara Wilson of the Houston Grand Opera.
His success as a composer has also included publications with both domestic and
international publishing companies, radio broadcasts, and commissions by major organizations,
such as the United States Air Force Band of Mid-America, the Ohio Music Education Association,
and the International Tuba and Euphonium Association.
Dr. Okpebholo has studied with the late “Disney Legend,” Buddy Baker, at New York
University in an ASCAP-sponsored film-scoring workshop. He was nationally selected to be a
part of the National Band Association and Bands of America’s Young Composer Mentor Project.
He has twice won the Kentucky Music Educators Association All-College Composition Contest
and is a three-time winner of Asbury College’s Peniston Honors in Composition. Since becoming
a member of ASCAP, he has received annual awards.
Dr. Okpebholo is currently on the Board of Advisors of the Blue Ash/Montgomery Symphony
Orchestra, a member of ASCAP, Society of Composers Incorporated, and is the Artistic Director
of The Eden Project, a contemporary chamber music ensemble.
Dr. Okpebholo received his B.A. in music composition and musicology from Asbury College
where he studied composition with James Curnow and Ronald Holz. In 2007, Dr. Okpebholo
received is D.M.A. in composition with a minor concentration in music theory from the University
of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where he also received his M.M. At CCM, Dr.
Okpebholo studied composition with Joel Hoffman and Michael Fiday, electro-acoustic and
computer music with Mara Helmuth, and jazz composition with Paul Piller.
Circleplay originally composed for solo clarinet and digital delay (Digitech TRS-24) is a
result of my long time desire to compose an electro-acoustic composition. I first heard Anthony
Taylor use digital delay during a performance of Thea Musgrave's Narcissus. I was so fascinated
by that performance that I had decided to compose a piece using similar delay techniques. A
year later came Circleplay . For this composition to be successful, it is important that the
performer play with rhythmic integrity in order accomplish the correct groove. This will also result
in the performer playing off of and in canon with him or herself. You will see why I call Anthony a
clarinet virtuoso. I would like to give special thanks to Thomas Royal for working many hours in
converting the Digitech TSR-24 delay effects to Max/MSP.
Pablo Ortiz was first trained in his native Buenos Aires, where he received a degree from
the Universidad Catolica Argentina. At 27, he moved to New York to study at Columbia
University. He studied composition with Mario Davidovsky, , Chou Wen Chung, Jack Beeson ,
Jacques Louis Monod, Fred Lerdahl, Gerardo Gandini, and Roberto Caamano. At present, he is
Professor of Composition at the University of California, Davis. He taught composition and was
co-director of the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 1994. His
music has been heard at international festivals in Salzburg (Aspekte), Geneva (Extasis),
Strasbourg (Musica), Havana, Frankfurt, Zurich, Sao Paulo and Mexico City. He was a fellow at
the Composers' Conference at Wellesley College in 1986 and 1988, and he was commissioned
by the Fromm Foundation in 1992. In 1993, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 he
received the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999 he
was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation to write a piece, Raya en el mar, for the San
Francisco Contemporary Music Players. In 2000 he received a grant from Fideicomiso para la
cultura Mexico-US to write children's songs based on poems by Francisco Alarcon, renowned
Chicano poet and Mission artist.
Daniel C Pappas is currently pursuing his DMA in composition at the University of South
Carolina where he studies with Dr. John Fitz Rogers and Dr. Reginald Bain. Daniel received his
undergraduate degree from Grace College, Indiana in violin performance in 2003, and a Masters
degree in composition from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2006 where he
studied with Mark Engebretson. Having grown up in Southern Germany he received training in
violin, piano, the recorder and theory/composition from an early age at the Musikschule Aalen.
His teachers include Stefan Kueling and the composer Henning Brauel. Daniel’s first notable
performance took place in Heubach, Germany with the Rosenstein Kammerorcherster in 2004. In
2006, The Silence about Heaven a piece for orchestra was premiered by the UNCG Symphony
having been selected as the winner of the University’s annual concerto competition. This same
work was presented a few months later in Germany as part of the Rosenstein Kammerorchester’s
centennial celebration.
Fantasia per Oboe e Electro Continuo (2007) is the second installment in a series of
works dedicated to and commissioned by my brother and highly talented oboist Thomas Pappas.
Built around a simple A-B formal plan, this piece was inspired by literature on human pain and the
basic human condition. Section A is meant to explore the debilitating effects of a hopeless
existence, whereas section B is a reflection of the beauty in pain in which to find redemption and
the knowledge of truth.
The electronic accompaniment was created with the use of the computer programs Absynth,
Vegas, and Cubase. In an effort to enhance the beautiful sound of the oboe and blend it with the
Continuo, the instrument is slightly amplified and run through a reverb-unit.
A special thanks goes to tonight’s performer, who has been a tireless champion of new music and
who continues to exceed all my expectations for what my music can sound like.
Matthew Phelps is a composer and conductor from Cincinnati, OH. He currently is the
music director for St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church and Women In Song. His choral compositions
have been performed by Churches throughout the United States and are published by Kjos and
Roger Dean Publishing. He has written underscores for new productions of The Crucible and
Romeo and Juliet at Wright State University and is currently working on a musical that will be
premiered in Cincinnati in the summer of 2008. He studies with San Francisco composer David
Conte.
Three piano pieces were written while a student at the College Conservatory of Music in
Cincinnati. These pieces infuse dance rhythms, jazz, and modern classical harmonic styles. The
first movement takes the cross rhythm of a jazz waltz and melds it will percussive opening theme.
The theme abruptly ends and melds with a devilish 2-part invention until the theme returns. The
second movement was conceived as a modern minuet in free style. It uses modal writing; which
makes it sound almost impressionistic. It also employs a strict accompaniment in the left hand
while the melody is very free; an interesting juxtaposition reminiscent to people trying to impose
time on a timeless universe. The final movement uses Latin Jazz its inspiration and is a fun
short work for pianist and listener.
Matthew Quayle (BMI) joined the UNCG School of Music as Lecturer in 2007. In recent
years his music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, the Arditti String Quartet, the Avalon
String Quartet, eighth blackbird, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and the
Southeastern Trio. He has also received commissions from the Almeida Theatre in London, the
New London Children’s Choir, flutist Claire Chase, saxophonist Gail Levinsky, and cellist Ashley
Sandor Sidon. In 2007 his string orchestra piece Gridley Paige Road received both the Grand
Prize and the People's Choice Award in the Adagio Composition Contest of the Fauxharmonic
Orchestra. He composed the introduction to the ‘Round Midnight Variations, a collection of
variations by prominent contemporary composers on the Thelonius Monk theme; this work was
premiered by pianist Emanuele Arciuli at New York’s Miller Theater in 2002. Quayle frequently
performs as a piano soloist and chamber musician. Recent collaborations have included recitals
with clarinetist Deborah Andrus, cellist Jameson Platte, and flutist Elizabeth Ransom, He was
also featured as a composer and performer at the 2006 Glens Falls Symphony Musicbridge
Festival. In 1998 he performed his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Oberlin Chamber
Orchestra, as winner of the Oberlin Conservatory Concerto Competition. Quayle has served on
the faculty at New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine since 2002. A doctoral candidate at
New York University (GSAS), he holds a BM from Oberlin Conservatory and a MM from the
University of Cincinnati.
Sun Dance (2005) is an eight-minute fantasia for two alto saxophones and piano. The
mood is primarily light and exuberant, drawing from jazz, blues and minimalist styles. The two
saxophones are often paired and interlocked to create a "super-saxophone". Key clicks are used
in the central section to simulate a spontaneous improvisation of drums or clapping. This piece
was commissioned by Gail Levinsky, who recorded it in May 2006 at UNCG with Susan Fancher
and Inara Zandmane. The live premiere took place at the Penn State Convention of the North
American Saxophone Alliance in January 2007.
David Rakowski has received a number of awards and fellowships, and has twice been a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and won the Barlow Prize in 2006. He has composed five
concertos, three symphonies, 81 piano etudes, four song cycles, and a large amount of wind
ensemble music and chamber music for various combinations. His music has been performed
and recorded widely and is published by C.F. Peters. He is currently the Walter W. Naumburg
Professor of Composition at Brandeis University.
Rakowski writes:
I write music. Concert music. Texas tea. The music is difficult (it's not just hard, it's damn
hard, or in Maine, wickid had), not tonal in the traditional diatonic sense ("tonal" is an imprecise
word, and in many senses, my music IS tonal -- it has also been called "atonal," "with more tonal
centers that you used to have," "sounds like it's in a minor key," "pretty," and "unremarkable"),
and somewhat traditionally structured -- and it has lots and lotsa notes. People who use language
imprecisely call the music "Modernist." Others have called it "Romantic", "total rockout" and
"borderline Neoclassical". Go figure. I live in Massachusetts and Maine with my wife Beth, and we
own two red canoes. Both of us grew up in Vermont near Lake Champlain, me in a dairy farming
region (where we don't talk about our feelings, we don't talk about how much we make, and the
word "cow" has between five and six syllables) and Beth in the ultra-cosmopolitan Burlington. I
teach composition and music theory at Brandeis University, and Beth teaches composition,
theory and clarinet at the University of Maine in Orono. Thanks to our long-distance marriage, we
have two of many things, including cats, houses, mortgages, cars, vacuum cleaners, back yards,
refrigerators, garages, lawnmowers, iPods (actually, we have four), back doors, mud rooms,
attics, futon couches, driveways, kitchen sinks, basements, washers, dryers, belly buttons, and
fingernail clippers. And now, also two canoes (both of them red), thanks to a recent co-inheritance
in Vermont. And six computers. And six printers. Including a color laser printer
(bitchin).
My students, both graduates and undergraduates, have permission to call me Davy, as do
my colleagues. I do not know what any of them call me behind my back (this expression would
not make sense if I were a mobius strip). Other very good (but strange) friends, and relatives, call
me Uncle Davy (note: "Davy" is a four-letter word).
Born in Argentina, composer Alejandro Rutty’s output includes orchestral, chamber and
mixed-media music, arrangements of Argentine traditional music, and innovative outreach
musical projects
Rutty’s compositions and arrangements have been played by the Minnesota Symphony
Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Argentina, National Symphony Orchestra of Brazil,
New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Linköping Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, the New
York New Music Ensemble, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and the Cassatt String Quartet
among other groups. Recordings of his music have been released by Capstone Records, Arizona
University Recordings, and ERM Media
Recent events include: the performance of Rutty’s arrangement of Roop Verma’s Concerto
for Sitar and orchestra in Linkoping, Sweden, and a concert of the Hey, Mozart New Mexico’s
project with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra
Rutty is currently working on an orchestral piece commissioned the MATA Festival. The
piece will be performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at the MATA Festival in Boston
and New York City in the spring of 2008.
Founder and Artistic Director of the Hey, Mozart! project, Rutty's activities include his work
as arranger and pianist for Lorena Guillén's Argentine-Tango performances. He has been Co-
Director of the Hartwick College Summer Music Festival and founder of the ensemble Lake Affect,
a group dedicated to interdisciplinary work with poets.
Alejandro Rutty is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina
at Greensboro.
L’accordeoniste, for oboe, clarinet, alto sax, and bassoon is the second life of Witchcraft
Recipes #13, for accordion, clarinet, violin, and cello. The piece, originally composed for a group
including Bulgarian accordionist Peter Stan, is a view of music of the Balkans as seen from South
America.
In the piece, imperfect imitations of the idiosyncrasies of gypsy accordion playing with South
American accent meets a tourist fantasy about gypsy weddings. The metaphor of the wedding
guides the structure of the piece, and it includes a band with an accordionist, dance, abundant
drink, and the collapse of the tent ruining the food, but not the party. Witchcraft Recipes #13 was
never performed.
This version of the piece was written for Eastwind and it is called L’accordeoniste in
reference both to the imagined and to the real accordion player, while making a reference to a
well-known old French song.
Vamoalzamendi 2, for soprano and electronic media, is a piece which works on three
referential layers. The first layer is a re-telling of a traditional Argentine urban folk tale, which
could be summarized as:
“A man who, after having a coffee to dispel the sleepiness of a Sunday afternoon, heads to
the race track, bets on the wrong horse and returns home on foot, as he has lost even the money
for the bus fare. As he walks unconcerned –he may have better luck next time-, he whistles an
old song”
The second layer is the exploration of natural curves. In this piece, the natural curves are
reflected by recordings of actual events with natural dynamic processes such as a coffee
machine and the sounds surrounding a horse race.
The third layer is that represented by the live voice, which attempts to navigate both the
literary and the sonic aspect of the piece. The vocal part has been composed in collaboration with
soprano Lorena Guillén.
Avant-garde composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski studied with many of the best-known
names in 20th century music: Randall Thompson, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt,
Luigi Dallapiccola, and Elliott Carter. Rzewski studied at Harvard and Princeton and taught at
schools including the Royal Conservatory of Music at Liege and Yale. He was awarded a
Fulbright Fellowship in 1960 and co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome in 1966.
Amy Scurria holds a Masters in Music Composition from the Peabody Conservatory at
Johns Hopkins University where she studied with Robert Sirota and Chen Yi, and a Bachelors in
Music Composition from The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, TX. She
has also studied composition at La Schola Cantorum in Paris, France with Samuel Adler, Philip
Lasser and Narcis Bonet, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Westminster Choir College summer
composition program. She is currently a Music Composition PhD candidate at Duke
University.
Having had her first commission in 1994, Ms Scurria has since been commissioned by such
groups as the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra (co-commission), the Fort
Wayne Philharmonic, the Vermont Youth Orchestra, Shepherd College in WV, SHE (an a
cappella women's choir in NYC dedicated to raising money for NYC charities through music), and
the Bryn Mawr (PA) Presbyterian Church, as well as others.
Amy Scurria became one of the youngest composers published by Theodore Presser
Company. Her music is also now published by Adamo Press. Her music has been heard
throughout the United States, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, France, England, and Japan.
Her honors and awards have included eight consecutive ASCAPlus Awards, the 1998
Winner of the Haddonfield Young Composers' Competition, and 1991 Winner of the Northern
Virginia Composition Competition. Her music has been aired on WCVT, Burlington, VT, WPRB,
Princeton, NJ, and Kohlrobi Classics, 90.7 FM, CA. Internet features have included New Music
Box, Piano Lane, and Classical Net Review. Ms Scurria is affiliated with ASCAP, Theodore
Presser Company, Adamo Press, CPCC, American Composers Forum, and NACUSA.
Ms. Scurria believes that "Music is a powerful and unusual language that, when spoken
well, can reach the deepest part of the human spirit."
Commissioned by the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Hagar's Prayer is dedicated "To
those who died on September 11th, 2001 and for continued dialogue between Christians and
those of other faiths." The text is by Margaret Holley.
"And God opened her eyes,
And she saw a well of water;
And she went and filled the bottle
With water, and gave the lad a drink." Genesis 21:19
Hagar's Prayer is derived from a story in Genesis. Hagar was the servant girl of Abraham
and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah tried to have children for many years without success. In their
impatience, Sarah commanded Hagar to sleep with her husband Abraham. Hagar became
pregnant and bore a son named Ishmael, which means "God hears." (Sarah later bore a son and
they named him Isaac). Sarah, out of jealousy, mistreated Hagar after the birth of Ishmael until
Hagar fled into the desert with her son. The text of this piece is written from the standpoint of
Hagar as she struggles to care for her son and keep both of them alive.
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael (by Hagar) and Isaac (by Sarah). Ishmael became the
grandfather of the Arab nation, and Isaac became the grandfather of the Jewish nation. Christ
was born of the Jews and was descended from Isaac. Muhammad, the prophet of the Muslim
faith, was born of the Arabs and was descended from Ishmael.
This work is intended as a reminder that though we may believe that differing faiths set us
apart, we are much more like brothers and sisters than we may realize.
Called "marvelously inventive" by the Washington Post and "exuberant and captivating" by
the San Francisco Chronicle, Judith Shatin's music reflects her adventures as a timbral explorer.
Her inspirations range from myth and poetry to the calls of the animals around us and the
sounding universe beyond. Her music is internationally performed and has been featured at
festivals including the Aspen, BAM Next Wave, Grand Teton, Havana in Spring, Moscow Autumn,
Seal Bay, Ukraine and West Cork. Orchestras that have performed her music include the Denver,
Houston, Illinois, Knoxville, Minnesota, National and Richmond Symphonies. Shatin's music can
be heard on the Centaur, Neuma, New World and Sonora labels. It has been commissioned by
groups including the Ash Lawn Opera, Barlow Foundation, Core Ensemble, Garth Newel
Chamber Players, Kronos Quartet, Music-at-LaGesse Foundation, National Symphony, newEar,
Hexagon Ensemble, Virginia Chamber Orchestra and Wintergreen Performing Arts, the last
through Americans for the Arts.
Educated at Douglass College (AB), The Juilliard School (MM) and Princeton University
(PhD), Judith Shatin is currently William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Director of the Virginia
Center for Computer Music, which she founded at the University of Virginia. Additional studies
included two summers as a Crofts Composition Fellow at Tanglewood, as well as studies at the
Aspen Music Festival. Now an advocate for her fellow composers, she has served on the boards
of the American Composers Alliance, the League/ISCM, and the International Alliance for Women
in Music (IAWM). She also served as President of American Women Composers, Inc. (1989-93).
Shatin has been honored with four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, as well as
awards from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the New Jersey State Arts Council
and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. A two-year retrospective of her music, and the
commission for her folk oratorio, COAL, was sponsored by the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Arts
Partners Program. She has held residencies at Bellagio (Italy), Brahmshaus (Germany), La Cité
des Arts (France), Mishkan Amanim (Israel) and in the US at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for
the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. Shatin's music is published by Wendigo Music, distributed by MMB
Music Inc.; and by Arsis Press, C.F. Peters, Colla Voce and Hal Leonard.
Penelope’s Song is a tribute to Penelope, Queen of Carthage and wife of Odysseus. It
was inspired by Homer’s epic, the Odyssey, which tells of the travails of Odysseus, but reflects
Penelope’s point of view. Ulysses was away from home for twenty years, first at war in Troy and
then, due to the sea-god Poseidon’s wrath, for ten more years. The story also tells of Penelope,
left waiting for him for all that time, and of the many suitors, filled with greed and arrogance, who
tried to woo her in order to become king. To stave them off she devised many excuses. In one,
she said she would take no suitor until she finished weaving a shroud for her husband’s aged
father, Laertes. But, since she unraveled at night what she wove by day, she made no progress.
Instead, she actively waited for Ulysses’ return. This piece sings of her adventures. The
electronics were created from a recording of a local weaver working on wooden looms. I
processed and shaped these materials, weaving a new sonic fabric. The original version was
composed for violist Rozanna Weinberger. Subsequent versions were created for violin, cello
and clarinet. This version, for soprano saxophone, was commissioned by and is dedicated to
Susan Fancher. In addition to the musical elements, an animation was created for Penelope's
Song by artists Kathy Aoki and Marco Marquez. They used a combination of digital painting, 3-
d modeling/animation, and digital video to achieve the final result. They thought of the piece in
three movements. The first is realized as a building up of the cloth/threads, with a feeling of
weight and impending danger or pressure. The second was interpreted as a night scene,
wherein Penelope ponders her position and surreptitiously unravels the weavings. The last
movement is a visual refrain, based on the first, but with more dramatic and decisive motions.
While the piece can be performed with or without the video, I am delighted by their work, and urge
that the piece be performed with DVD.
From the Animators: This animation, inspired by the weaving sounds of Judith Shatin's
Penelope's Song, is our first collaborative effort. The creative process began with interpretive
analysis of the electronic music. The weaving notion and the loom recordings became very
important for both the images and their rhythmic motion. We also discussed our understanding of
Penelope's onus (weaving and unraveling her work as she fends off the suitors while waiting for
Ulysses to return) in relation to Shatin's music. We used a combination of digital painting, 3-d
modeling/animation, and digital video to achieve the final animation. Throughout the process, we
consulted with Shatin about her visual expectations. We thought of the piece in three movements.
The first is realized as a building up of the cloth/threads, with a feeling of weight and impending
danger or pressure. The second was interpreted as a night scene, wherein Penelope ponders her
position and surreptitiously unravels the weavings. The last movement is a visual refrain based
on the first, with more dramatic and decisive motions.
Devoted to sound and structure, Braxton Sherouse is equal parts composer and code
junky. His music has been recognized by the New York Art Ensemble and has been performed
on the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. He has participated in David Cope's Workshop on
Algorithmic Computer Music and numerous music and programming conferences. Most recently,
he created a DAW-style audio environment featuring controller lane manipulation of audio
objects, hardware-accelerated video integration, and support for high sampling rates and channel
counts. Mentored by Mark Engebretson and Alejandro Rutty, Sherouse will receive his Bachelor's
degree in Music Composition from UNC Greensboro this December.
Regulated Action is a set of bite-sized process pieces for solo piano. Each movement
presents self-revealing structures, auditory milestones, rule-based pitch content, and a pinch of
funk. A number of diverse compositional methods were used to vitalize (or perhaps regulate) the
basic musical materials in each movement: intuition, software, coffee, stochastic motion,
logarithm charts, more coffee, and so on. As a whole, the work explores the physical nature of
piano performance, the instrument's construction, structural clarity, and "groove."
Morton Subotnick is one of the pioneers in the development of electronic music and an
innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music
systems. The work which brought Subotnick celebrity was Silver Apples of the Moon [1966-
7], was commissioned by Nonesuch Records, marking the first time an original large-scale
composition had been created specifically for the disc medium - a conscious acknowledgment
that the home stereo system constituted a present-day form of chamber music. He is also
pioneering works to offer musical creative tools to young children. He is the author of a series of
CDROMS for children, a children’s website [www.creatingmusic.com] and developing a program
for classroom and after school programs that will soon become available internationally. He tours
extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe as a lecturer and composer/performer.
The title, In Two Worlds, refers both to the duality of the media (computer and traditional
instrument) and to the synthesis of the musical materials, which consists of recent and more
modal concepts of music language. The 18-minute work is in one movement, with sections titled
"alone-rushing-celebration-cadenza-alone-combat dance." Subotnick's aim with the electronics
was to find a way to blend the live performer with the technology, with the technology responding
to the performer. This new version, created in 2007 by Jeff Heisler and Mark Bunce of Bowling
Green State University in collaboration with Morton Subotnick, uses Max/MSP, making the
electronics portion of the work significantly more portable than the original technical setup of
1987.
Fuminori Tanada was born in Okayama in 1961 and studied composition from 1979 until
1983 at the National University of Art and Music in Tokyo, notably with Yoshio Hachimura. He
continued his studies at the Conservatoire Natronal Superieur de Musique in Palis where he
received first prizes for composition, orchestration and accompaniment. He is the pianist of the
contemporary music group Ensemble Itinéraire for whom he has also composed.
In Mysterious Morning III I wished to create a state of sonic instability by means of
extremely virtuoso writing, with various playing techniques such as bisbigliando, irregular trills,
glissandi, sounds sung and played simultaneously, and micro-intervals; this instability is an image
of man quivering with madness, a madness that he attempts to conceal within himself; my wish
was that the piece should sound like an improvisation.
Rodney Waschka II, composer, is best known for his algorithmic compositions, intermedia
pieces, as well as music for traditional ensembles. His works often include electronic computer
music or other media: visuals, theater, poetry.
His music has been performed throughout the United States, in Canada, Mexico, Russia,
England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium,
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Norway, Japan, China, Argentina, Columbia, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Israel,
South Africa, and elsewhere.
Important festivals and concert halls where his works have been performed include the
International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US
festival, the World Saxophone Congress in Montreal, Merkin Concert Hall in New York, the
Sheremetev Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, the International Review of Composers in
Belgrade, the Purcell Room in London, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and many others.
Composition, performances, and recordings of Waschka's works have been supported by
the North Carolina Arts Council, The National Endowment for the Arts (USA), Meet The
Composer, the Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain), the Texas Composers' Forum, the Center for
Experimental Music and Intermedia, Northern Illinois University, North Carolina State University,
and others.
Waschka's works are recorded on the Capstone, IRIDA, Centaur, and AUR labels (USA),
Ama Romanta and Plancton labels (Portugal), and the PeP label (Canada). His music is
published by Borik Press (Raleigh) and American Composers Editions (New York City).
Waschka's teachers Larry Austin, Thomas Clark, Paul Berg, Clarence Barlow, George
Lewis, Charles Dodge, Robert Ashley, and Joel Ryan.
When I was asked by Karen Moorman to write a flute/oboe/piano trio especially for a young
audience (of all ages), I thought of a number of old Russian folk tales as possible plot lines. I
consulted with our children, Andre (then 13 years old) and Lana (9 years old at that time). Their
favorite was The Good Luck and the Bad Luck, so I set about rewriting the story and retelling it
in music. Of course, I changed things to accommodate a trio of story tellers, time constraints, and
my own sense of the English language. The premiere was given on 21 September 2004 as part
of the Arts NOW Series in Raleigh, performed by members of the Mallarme Chamber Players,
Anna Ludwig Wilson, flutist, Bo Newsome, oboist, and Greg McCallum, pianist. The work is
dedicated to Andre Kurepa Waschka and Lana Kurepa Waschka.
PERFORMERS
Wayne Bennett holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from the University of
Georgia and a Master's degree in Performance from the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. Mr. Bennett is currently pursuing a DMA in Performance at UNCG, where he has
also taught Music Theory. His primary trumpet teachers include Michael Stroeher, Randy
Sorensen, Fred Mills and Edward Bach.
Mr. Bennett is currently the Trumpet/Brass Instructor at the Music Academy of North
Carolina in Greensboro. He has performed with organizations in Georgia, South Carolina,
Colorado, and North Carolina, including the Georgia Brass, the Classic City Opera, the Western
Piedmont Symphony Orchestra, the Hickory Choral Society, the Greensboro Opera Company, the
Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra, and Market Street Brass. Mr. Bennett was a semi-finalist in the
Masters Solo Division of the National Trumpet Competition in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. He
currently resides in Greensboro, NC with his wife, Elizabeth.
Mary Ashley Barret is the Oboe Professor at the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro and has been on the faculty since 1998. A native of North Carolina, she holds the
principal oboe position with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra in addition to being a frequent
performer throughout the southeastern USA. She has appeared as soloist with the Salisbury
Symphony, the Florida State Wind Orchestra, the UNCG Orchestra, the Pottstown Symphony
Orchestra, and has presented numerous guest recitals and master classes throughout the United
States, Caribbean, Central America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia . An avid champion of
the chamber ensemble, Barret performs regularly with the Cascade Wind Quintet, the EastWind
Trio d’Anches, TreVent and has spent several summers playing chamber music in the
Adirondacks of New York. In 2003, Barret was co-host for the International Double Reed
Society’s 32nd annual Conference. Most recently, in 2005, the EastWind Trio d’Anches made
their Carnegie-Hall debut. Barret's degrees include the Doctor of Music from Florida State
University, the Master of Music from Baylor University, and the Bachelor of Music from the
Eastman School of Music. She can be heard on Live from Luzerne recordings with the Luzerne
Chamber Players (NY), Out of the Woods , French reed trio music with TreVent, The Russian
Clarinet (with EastWind Trio d’Anches) and Chamber Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (pub. by
Centaur Records). Barret is an artist/clinician for Buffet-Crampon.
Kelly Burke joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1989.
She is currently the principal clarinetist of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and bass
clarinetist of the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra. Equally at home playing Baroque to Bebop,
she has appeared in recitals and as a soloist with symphony orchestras throughout the United
States, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and Russia. An avid chamber musician,
Burke is frequently heard in concert with the Mallarmé Chamber Players, for whom she plays both
clarinet and bass clarinet, the East Wind Trio d'Anches, Middle Voices (clarinet, viola and piano),
and the Cascade Wind Quintet. Burke's discography includes several recent releases with
Centaur Records: The Russian Clarinet, with works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Glinka, Melkikh,
and Goedicke; Middle Voices: Chamber Music for Clarinet and Viola, featuring works by several
American composers; and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Chamber Music featuring the quintet and
nonet. She has also recorded for Telarc, Albany and Arabesque labels. Burke has received
several teaching awards, including UNCG's Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, the School of
Music Outstanding Teacher Award, has been named several times to Who's Who Among
America's Teachers, and was recently honored with the 2004 UNC Board of Governor's Teaching
Excellence Award. She is the author of numerous pedagogical articles and the critically acclaimed
book Clarinet Warm-Ups: Materials for the Contemporary Clarinetist. She holds the BM and MM
degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the DMA. from the University of Michigan. Burke
is an artist/clinician for Rico International and Buffet Clarinets.
Michael Burns holds the BM degree from the Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand, the MM from the New England Conservatory, and the DMA from the University of
Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Burns has performed in numerous professional
orchestras including the Cincinnati and the New Zealand Symphonies and played Principal in the
Midland/Odessa, Richmond and Abilene Symphonies; and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.
Prior to UNCG he taught at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory, Indiana State University, and
Midland College. He remains active as a solo and chamber performer with numerous
performances at International Double Reed Society conventions, recitals and master classes
throughout North America and the South Pacific, and is bassoonist in the EastWind Ensemble
and the Cascade Quintet. He has recorded for the Centaur, CAP, Telarc, EMI, Klavier, and Mark
labels. In summers, Burns is associated with the Eastern Music Festival and the Bands of
America Summer Symposium. He is also an active composer with many of his pieces being
published by BOCAL Music and frequently performed. His mentors include William Winstead,
Sherman Walt, Leonard Sharrow, and Colin Hemmingsen. He is archivist for the International
Double Reed Society and was co-host for the IDRS 2003 Conference in Greensboro, NC. Burns
is a Yamaha Performing Artist.
Amy Briggs Dissanayake has established herself as a leading interpreter of the music of
living composers, while also bringing a fresh perspective to music of the past. She recorded two
volumes of David Rakowski’s Piano Etudes on Bridge Records to much critical acclaim. Based in
Chicago, she is a featured soloist and chamber musician on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s
MusicNOW series, where she has worked with composers such as Simon Bainbridge, Pierre
Boulez, Oliver Knussen, David Lang, Tania Léon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Augusta Read
Thomas. In the 2005-2006 season, she premiered Knussen’s A Fragment from Ophelia’s Last
Dance for solo piano. She was awarded a stipend prize at the 2000 Darmstadt Internationale
Fereinkurse für Neue Musik.
The Chicago Tribune has called “extraordinary” Dissanayake’s “mastery of what lay on the
dense, printed page and beyond,” and the Chicago Sun-Times called her a “ferociously talented
pianist.” Classics Today said of volume one of the Rakowski Etudes project, “Dissanayake does a
splendid job projecting the music's wit, and her unflappable virtuosity makes even the densest
writing sound effortless... a marvelous disc that piano fanciers should snap up without hesitation.”
In addition, the New York Times praised her recent recording of Augusta Read Thomas’s six
Piano Etudes as “elegant” and “precisely shaded.”
Dissanayake has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Europe,
Asia and Africa. In 1993, she was selected by the United States Information Agency to tour Africa
and South Asia as a United States Artistic Ambassador. Her highly acclaimed concerts combined
traditional repertoire with contemporary American music. Today, her recital programs connect
composers from all eras and nationalities. She has performed with the Callisto Ensemble, the
Chicago Contemporary Players, Chicago Pro Musica, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Klang,
and the Empyrean Ensemble, and as an extra keyboardist with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. She has also been a prizewinner in the Joanna Hodges International Piano
Competition and the Frinna Awerbuch International Piano Competition.
Amy Briggs Dissanayake has appeared as soloist with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra,
New Hampshire Philharmonic, and the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, among others, and her
live and recorded performances have been featured on radio stations around the United States
and Europe. Recent performances include the Rock Hotel Piano Festival in New York City, the
world premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s new piano quintet with the Pacifica Quartet, a residency at
the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, and solo recitals in the
People’s Republic of China. Recordings soon to be released include a disc of 20th and 21st
century tangos for solo piano, a concerto for piano and wind ensemble of George Flynn on
Southport Records, and chamber music recordings of Conlon Nancarrow and Erik Oña for
Wergo. Upcoming engagements include a performance with Ursula Oppens and the Mark Morris
Dance Company at the Ravinia Festival, as well as solo recitals at Symphony Space in New York
City and an appearance on the Keys to the Future Piano Festival in New York City. A graduate of
Skidmore College and DePaul University, Ms. Dissanayake studied with Ursula Oppens at
Northwestern University, where she earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano
Performance. She is a Steinway Artist.
Susan Fancher’s career has featured hundreds of concerts internationally as a soloist and
as the member of chamber music ensembles, including the Red Clay, Amherst, Vienna and
Rollin’ Phones saxophone quartets. Her work to develop the repertoire for the saxophone has
produced dozens of commissioned works by contemporary composers, as well as published
transcriptions of music by composers as diverse as Josquin Desprez and Steve Reich. A much
sought-after performer of new music, she has worked with a multitude of composers including
Terry Riley, Charles Wuorinen, Philip Glass, Hilary Tann, Friedrich Cerha, Ben Johnston, M.
William Karlins, Stuart Saunders Smith, Perry Goldstein, Olga Neuwirth, Judith Shatin, David
Stock, Michael Torke, Ed Campion and Robert Carl, just to name a few, and has performed in
many of the world’s leading concert venues and contemporary music festivals. Her discography
includes a solo CD entitled Ponder Nothing on the Innova label and a recording on New World
Records of Forever Escher by Paul Chihara. Susan Fancher is a regularly featured columnist for
the nationally distributed Saxophone Journal and an artist for the Selmer and Vandoren
companies.
Samee Griffith is a DMA student in the piano performance program at UNCG and is
currently studying with Dr. John Salmon. She holds a BM from Wright State University in piano
performance and a MM from Bowling Green State University in piano performance and
collaborative piano. While at BGSU, Samee had the opportunity to perform with the university
choirs and premiere several choral works by jazz legend Dave Brubeck.
The Washington-Post has described Lorena Guillén as a “delicate soprano” and praised
her ”...polish performance of ...French cabaret song...(and her)...total mastery of the difficult
Sprechtstimme...” She studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Argentina and holds a
MM in Vocal Performance and a Ph.D. in Musicology from SUNY at Buffalo. Guillén has received
scholarships from the Britten-Pears Institute (England), and worked closely to Karlheinz
Stockhausen in Germany, later touring with his Indianerlieder around US, Canada and Argentina.
As an active performer of contemporary music, she has appeared in venues such as:
Chautauqua Institution, “New Music New Haven” of Yale University, June in Buffalo Festival,
Museo Fernandez Blanco, Music Gallery at Toronto (Canada), Contemporary Music Festival
UNCG, Catskills Choral Society, Washington’s Shakespeare Theater with Music Aperta. She has
recorded for University of Arizona Recordings and Innova Records. A founding member of the
word/music experimental group Lake Affect (1999-2002), for the past four years, she has been a
regular soloist of the multidisciplinary concerts of the ensemble Musica Aperta in Washington DC.
Her research interests encompass issues of text perception in vocal music with special emphasis
in repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries and Latin American popular music, presenting papers
on these topics at IASPM-Latin America (Mexico 2002 and Brazil 2004), College Music Society,
UNCG Greensboro, Universidad Nacional de San Juan (Argentina), Bates College (IN), and the
American Institute of Graphic Art (Boston, USA). This Fall 2007, she has joined the music history
faculty at UNCG Greensboro.
Active as an oboe soloist, chamber, and orchestra musician, Thomas Pappas has
performed throughout the United States, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Wales.
Recent solo appearances include performances of oboe concertos in Greensboro, NC and with
the Aalen Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he grew up and first learned how to play the
oboe. Earlier this year Pappas was a featured soloist on the annual computer music concert
XMUSE at the University of South Carolina. He enjoys performing new music and has premiered
several works, including ones written for him by his brother Daniel. Pappas holds the BA degree
from Grace College, IN, the MM from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and is
currently working on the DMA at UNCG with Dr. Mary Ashley Barret.
Cellist Gina Pezzoli is a member of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and the Fibonacci
Chamber Orchestra. She maintains her own private studio and frequently performs as a
substitute with the North Carolina Symphony, the Winston-Salem Symphony, and the Carolina
Ballet. For the past three holiday seasons she has been a member of the ensemble-in-residence
at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA. She is currently pursuing her DMA in Cello
Performance at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro. She holds the MM in Cello
Performance from UNCG and the BA in French and Music from the University of Virginia.
Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Canada,
Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Chamber music endeavors include performances with the Diaz Trio,
Kandinsky Trio and Ciompi Quartet as well as with members of the Cleveland, Audubon and
Cassatt String Quartets. His most recent CD recording, released on the Centaur label, features
the chamber music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and was released summer 2004. His recording of
chamber works for viola and clarinet was released spring 2003 on the same label. The ensemble,
Middle Voices, will record another disc for Centaur featuring the chamber music of American
composer, Eddie Bass. Additional chamber music recordings can be heard on the CRI,
Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels. Also a champion of new music, Rawls has toured
extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians since 1991. As the violist in this
ensemble, he has performed the numerous premieres of The Cave and Three Tales, multimedia
operas by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting
organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d'Automne a Paris, Holland Festival,
Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major
music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague,
Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. He is a founding member of the
Locrian Chamber Players, a New York City based group dedicated to performing new music. Dr.
Rawls currently serves as Associate Professor of Viola and Chair of the Instrumental Division in
the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Under the baton of
maestro Dmitry Sitkovetsky, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He
is very active as guest clinician, adjudicator, and master class teacher at universities and festivals
in America and Europe. During the summers, Rawls plays principal viola in the festival orchestra
at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program. He holds a BM degree
from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook.
His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, and John Graham.
Ralph Wayne Reich, Jr. received his BM from the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro and his MM from Syracuse University. He is currently pursuing his DMA having
returned to UNCG. As an undergraduate, Reich was a member of the Gate City Camerata and
the Contemporary Chamber Players. At Syracuse University, Reich served as Concertmaster of
the University Symphony Orchestra and co-founded the Syrus Chamber Musician ensemble.
Reich has taught violin lessons at SU, serving as an Affiliate Artist. He is a current faculty
member at the Music Academy of North Carolina and performs regularly in the Triad area as a
member of the Fibonacci Chamber Orchestra, the Salisbury Symphony, and as a freelance
musician.
Steve Stusek has earned an international reputation for virtuosic performances of standard
and new works for the saxophone as well as for his engaging master classes and clinics. A
founding member of both the acclaimed Red Clay Sax Quartet and the UNCG Quatuor d’Anches,
he has won the prestigious Dutch Chamber Music Competition as part of the saxophone-accordion
duo 2Track with Dutch accordion player Otine van Erp. Along with degrees from
Indiana University (BM, DM) and Arizona State University (MM), Stusek has studied at the Paris
Conservatoire and the Conservatoire de la Region de Paris, where he earned the Prix d'Or à
l'Unanimité in saxophone performance. He is also founder and host of the Carolina Saxophone
Symposium, a day-long conference held at UNCG each Fall, and dedicated to the highest level of
saxophone performance and education. The CSS is open to all saxophonists at no charge. In
addition to being performing artist for the Vandoren and Selmer companies, Stusek is on the
faculty of the Blue Lake Fine Arts Academy.
Anthony Taylor joined the UNCG School of Music faculty in 2007, and was also recently
appointed as Principal Clarinet of the Winston-Salem Symphony. He is also an active solo,
chamber, and jazz musician. This fall, he presented a paper on his research into John Adams’s
clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons in Bangor, Wales at the International Conference on Music and
Minimalism. Recent performance highlights include the world premiere of Seattle composer Gail
Gross’s Bossa Velha at the Washington State Music Teacher’s Association convention, solo
performances with jazz piano master Dick Hyman, and the world premiere recording of Gregory
Yasinitsky’s solo clarinet work For All That Has Been Given. He has been a member of the
Spokane Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, Spokane Opera and professional contemporary
music ensemble Zephyr. He has been on the faculties of Washington State University, Eastern
Washington University, Whitman College and Gonzaga University. Each August, Taylor also
teaches at the Midsummer Musical Retreat, a week-long camp for adult amateur musicians. In
summer 2007, he completed his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of
Music, and also holds degrees from The Florida State University and Washington State
University.
Sarah Love Taylor, mezzo-soprano, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and a second major
in French. She took First Place in the 2007 NC National Association of Teachers of Singing
auditions, where she also was awarded the Cate Continuing Education Scholarship. While at
Carolina, she studied voice with Dr. Terry Rhodes and sang with the UNC Chamber Singers
under the direction of Susan Klebanow. She currently studies voice with Dr. Elizabeth Linnartz
and is employed as Program Associate with the NC Community Foundation in Raleigh. Ms.
Taylor lives in Durham with her husband David and her cat Hobbes.
The UNCG Contemporary Century Chamber Players specializes in contemporary
literature for both instrumental and vocal chamber forces. Advanced students and faculty often
perform side-by-side in concerts that cover a broad gamut of styles and traditionally feature at
least one work by a North Carolina composer. The Players, who have appeared in such venues
as Raleigh's North Carolina Museum of Art, have received several grants and have welcomed
such distinguished composers as Thea Musgrave, Emma Lou Diemer, George Rochberg, Robert
Ward and Michael Colgrass to campus. During the 1990s, the players performed by invitation at
the world conference of the International Society for Music Education. The leadership of CCP is
comprised of Mark Engebretson, Robert Gutter and Alejandro Rutty.
Welborn E. Young, Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music, holds a
BME degree and a MA in Conducting degree from Middle Tennessee State University and a DMA
in choral conducting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Young teaches
undergraduate and graduate conducting, graduate seminars in choral repertoire, German diction,
and conducts the Women's Choir and Chamber Singers. In addition, Dr. Young is the Conductor
of the Choral Society of Greensboro. He has served as guest conductor and clinician in festivals
and clinics in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Illinois, and
Washington. Recently, His choirs have toured Austria, the Czech-Republic, Hungary, Italy, and
England. He is the former Artistic Director and Conductor for Windy City Performing Arts, Inc. in
Chicago. These ensembles received enthusiastic reviews in such papers the Chicago Sun Times,
Chicago Tribune, and the Windy City Times. In the summer of 1998, Dr. Young was a featured
festival conductor at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Netherlands. That same summer he was
guest conductor of Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Chorus and assisted with the preparation of
their first recording. He has prepared and conducted the Nashville Symphony Chorus and
appeared as guest conductor with the Nashville Opera Association.
Ināra Zandmane, born in the capital of Latvia, Rîga, started to play the piano at the age of
six. Zandmane holds a BM and MM from Latvian Academy of Music, MM in piano performance
from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and DMA in piano performance from the
University of Missouri at Kansas City. She has been the staff accompanist at the UNCG since
2003. She also served as the official accompanist for the MTNA Southern Division competition
and the North American Saxophone Alliance conference in 2004. Zandmane has performed in
recitals in St. Paul, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis, and New York, as well as in many
Republics of the former Soviet Union. In April 2000, she was invited to perform at the Glenn
Gould Studio in Toronto. Ināra Zandmane has appeared as a soloist with the Latvian National
Orchestra, Liepaja Symphony, Latvian Academy of Music Student Orchestra, SIU Symphony, and
UMKC Conservatory Symphony and Chamber orchestras. She has performed with various
chamber ensembles at the International Chamber Music Festivals in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn,
Helsinki (Finland), and Norrtelje (Sweden). For a few last years, Zandmane has worked together
with the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. She has given Latvian premieres of his two latest piano
pieces, Landscapes of the Burnt-out Earth and The Spring Music, and recorded the first of them
on the Conifer Classics label.